


when i paint my masterpiece

by nutellamuffin



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Data's Emotion Chip (Star Trek), Domestic Fluff, Feel-good, Nonbinary Data (Star Trek), Painting, Space Husbands, Their Love Is So, and all my hcs about it, canon blind character, except i don't think theyre married in this one, yet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28903905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutellamuffin/pseuds/nutellamuffin
Summary: despite knowing that geordi cannot see the canvas, and the lingering whisper at the back of their mind that any emotion his artwork provokes is synthetic, data thinks geordi’s paintings are beautiful.
Relationships: Data/Geordi La Forge
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29





	when i paint my masterpiece

**Author's Note:**

> i saw a fanart somewhere of this but it was fleeting and i have not been able to find it again ,, forgive me dear artist i’m sure we will meet again  
> anyways i wrote something based on that, if you recognize the quotes that’s why  
> also ive been sporadically rewatching the show entirely out of order and i miss my space gays, do not even attempt to @ me abt technicalities, just let me have this /lh  
> title is from "when i paint my masterpiece" by the band

“what do you feel when you paint, data?” geordi asks, and data wonders whether or not he realizes that he is dipping into white for the third time in a row.

they look at their own painting, and then back to geordi’s; it is so strange how they have every word available to them, and they do not have a name for the feeling in their chest. “i do not think it is anything worth mentioning.”

_ “i _ don’t think so.”

“how so?”

geordi has explained this to them a million times; they don’t know whether or not they have truly forgotten, or if the one emotion they have grown accustomed to is liking geordi’s voice. geordi smiles at them, and he says, “the chip is artificial, but your emotions come from  _ you, _ data. the chip doesn’t  _ make _ you feel certain things. it just allows you to.”

data looks at their painting, and they look at geordi’s; the stark differences of the two, how geordi’s is wispy and ethereal, and how data is immortalizing the things they see. the thing they want to see every day for as long as they are allowed.

geordi’s portrait in data’s painting is smiling back at them, and even though geordi’s does not seem to resemble anything at all, they feel as though it is smiling at them, too.

“whole.” they say, decidedly, and nod once. they look to geordi for approval, to find that same soft look on his face that they still don’t truly understand, but have somehow never asked him. (they realize that, in this moment. that they ask geordi about everything but himself.)

despite knowing that geordi cannot see the canvas, and the lingering whisper at the back of their mind that any emotion his artwork provokes is synthetic, data thinks geordi’s paintings are beautiful.

geordi touches their arm, and data thinks they are smiling, they must be.

“you are always painting the same thing.” he says, quietly, with that expression that he sees more than he lets on, and he likes it.

data looks at their painting, and painting-geordi is still smiling at them; and they realize, with a hundred percent certainty, that they are smiling back.

“i paint what i think is beautiful.”

  
in a million universes, even though they  _ should _ know- and in a way, they do- data will never truly realize that geordi sees when he looks at their painting; or even when he looks at  _ them. _ but for the first time in whatever they consider to be their life, data decides that not knowing some things, however small, make everything else all the more interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> I KNOW I KNOW ITS SO SHORT BUT THERES MORE COMING I PROMISE


End file.
